EP1119944B1 - Accounting in a communications network - Google Patents

Accounting in a communications network Download PDF

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Publication number
EP1119944B1
EP1119944B1 EP99925200A EP99925200A EP1119944B1 EP 1119944 B1 EP1119944 B1 EP 1119944B1 EP 99925200 A EP99925200 A EP 99925200A EP 99925200 A EP99925200 A EP 99925200A EP 1119944 B1 EP1119944 B1 EP 1119944B1
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Prior art keywords
network
usage
customer terminal
data
customer
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EP99925200A
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German (de)
English (en)
French (fr)
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EP1119944A2 (en
Inventor
Robert John Briscoe
Michael Rizzo
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British Telecommunications PLC
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British Telecommunications PLC
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Priority claimed from GBGB9812161.9A external-priority patent/GB9812161D0/en
Priority claimed from GBGB9825723.1A external-priority patent/GB9825723D0/en
Priority claimed from GBGB9902052.1A external-priority patent/GB9902052D0/en
Priority claimed from GBGB9902648.6A external-priority patent/GB9902648D0/en
Application filed by British Telecommunications PLC filed Critical British Telecommunications PLC
Priority to EP99925200A priority Critical patent/EP1119944B1/en
Publication of EP1119944A2 publication Critical patent/EP1119944A2/en
Application granted granted Critical
Publication of EP1119944B1 publication Critical patent/EP1119944B1/en
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    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M15/00—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
    • H04M15/81—Dynamic pricing, e.g. change of tariff during call
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
    • H04L12/02—Details
    • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
    • H04L12/02—Details
    • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
    • H04L12/1403—Architecture for metering, charging or billing
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
    • H04L12/02—Details
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    • H04L12/141—Indication of costs
    • H04L12/1414—Indication of costs in real-time
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
    • H04L12/02—Details
    • H04L12/14—Charging, metering or billing arrangements for data wireline or wireless communications
    • H04L12/1453—Methods or systems for payment or settlement of the charges for data transmission involving significant interaction with the data transmission network
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
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    • H04L12/1485—Tariff-related aspects
    • H—ELECTRICITY
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    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L12/00—Data switching networks
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    • H04L12/1485—Tariff-related aspects
    • H04L12/1489—Tariff-related aspects dependent on congestion
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L43/00—Arrangements for monitoring or testing data switching networks
    • H04L43/08—Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
    • H04L43/0823—Errors, e.g. transmission errors
    • H04L43/0829—Packet loss
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M15/00—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
    • H04M15/28—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP with meter at substation or with calculation of charges at terminal
    • H04M15/30—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP with meter at substation or with calculation of charges at terminal the meter or calculation of charges not being controlled from an exchange
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
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    • H04M15/00—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
    • H04M15/70—Administration or customization aspects; Counter-checking correct charges
    • H—ELECTRICITY
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    • H04M15/73—Validating charges
    • H—ELECTRICITY
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    • H04M15/80—Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects
    • H04M15/8027—Rating or billing plans; Tariff determination aspects based on network load situation
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M15/00—Arrangements for metering, time-control or time indication ; Metering, charging or billing arrangements for voice wireline or wireless communications, e.g. VoIP
    • H04M15/83—Notification aspects
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L41/00—Arrangements for maintenance, administration or management of data switching networks, e.g. of packet switching networks
    • H04L41/50—Network service management, e.g. ensuring proper service fulfilment according to agreements
    • H04L41/5003—Managing SLA; Interaction between SLA and QoS
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
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    • H04L43/08—Monitoring or testing based on specific metrics, e.g. QoS, energy consumption or environmental parameters
    • H04L43/0852—Delays
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
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    • H04L43/16—Threshold monitoring
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04L—TRANSMISSION OF DIGITAL INFORMATION, e.g. TELEGRAPHIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04L63/00—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security
    • H04L63/04—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security for providing a confidential data exchange among entities communicating through data packet networks
    • H04L63/0428—Network architectures or network communication protocols for network security for providing a confidential data exchange among entities communicating through data packet networks wherein the data content is protected, e.g. by encrypting or encapsulating the payload
    • H—ELECTRICITY
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    • H04M2215/01—Details of billing arrangements
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    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/22—Bandwidth or usage-sensitve billing
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/32—Involving wireless systems
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/70—Administration aspects, modify settings or limits or counter-check correct charges
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/70—Administration aspects, modify settings or limits or counter-check correct charges
    • H04M2215/7072—Validate charges
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/74—Rating aspects, e.g. rating parameters or tariff determination apects
    • H04M2215/7428—Load situation, e.g. Current network load, traffic load or available resources
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/82—Advice-of-Charge [AOC], i.e. notify subscriber of charges/cumulative charge; meter at the substation
    • H—ELECTRICITY
    • H04—ELECTRIC COMMUNICATION TECHNIQUE
    • H04M—TELEPHONIC COMMUNICATION
    • H04M2215/00—Metering arrangements; Time controlling arrangements; Time indicating arrangements
    • H04M2215/92—Autonomous calculations of charges in terminal, i.e. meter not controlled from exchange

Definitions

  • the present invention relates to a communications network, and in particular to charging mechanisms in such a network. It includes aspects of the inventions disclosed and claimed in the present applicant's co-pending British patent application no. 9812161.9 filed 5 June 1998.
  • WO98/02828 describes a system whereby an Internet Service Provider (ISP) may offer "free" Internet access to subscribers (provided they view a limited range of web sites operated by organisations who are prepared to pay the subscribers' costs).
  • ISP Internet Service Provider
  • the ISP purchases from a PSTN network operator a free-phone type number where the ISP pays the cost of any calls to that number;
  • a JAVA applet on a subscriber's terminal monitors the access to the Internet made by the subscriber and records time spent browsing Internet sites for which the operators have agreed with the ISP that they will pay the subscriber's connection costs; the ISP then charges the respective Internet Sites' owners for such connection costs and deducts such charges from the subscriber's bill.
  • WO95/27385 describes a control unit for locating within a telecommunications network at various demarcation points to perform multiple tasks such as traffic shaping, error detection and usage monitoring.
  • a key step in implementing a lightweight charging protocol suitable for use in a federated network is to de-centralise the metering of network usage by arranging for each customer terminal to monitor its own use of network resources.
  • a charging mechanism is provided that is intrinsically scaleable and that avoids significant overheads within the network.
  • the invention in preferred implementations, provides a basis for a multi-service packet network in which it is not necessary to police every packet. This makes it far easier to implement a multi-service network, i.e. one in which different packets may be scheduled differently according to which class of service applies, than with existing schemes.
  • the method includes storing the measurement data generated by step (a).
  • the measurement data data identifying a tariff applicable to the said measurement data.
  • the said data identifying the tariff may be the tariff itself, or may take the form of some identifying code or pointer for the tariff. Storing the tariff enables accounting data to be generated from measurements at the customer terminal even if the tariff varies over time.
  • the method includes communicating data generated by step (a) to a network accounting object controlled by a network operator.
  • data may be communicated from the network operator to the customer in a conventional way.
  • the network usage data may be communicated explicitly and the charge for network usage calculated by the network operator.
  • the usage data may be communicated implicitly in accounting data indicating a charge calculated by the customer terminal.
  • the method includes a step carried out by the network operator of sampling only part of the traffic communicated between a customer terminal and the network.
  • This sampled traffic is then compared with the network usage data reported from the customer terminal to the network provider accounting object, thereby detecting any discrepancy.
  • the comparison may be of the total charged for network usage, or may be of the detailed measurement data.
  • the former may be the norm for efficiency, with the latter used, in this case, only if the former shows discrepancies, in order to store evidence of fraud.
  • the inventors have found that the efficiency of the charging process can be further enhanced if the customer is responsible for measuring usage and providing useage data or priced useage data and the network operator measures only a sample of the customer traffic, on a random basis, to confirm the reliability of data provided by the customer.
  • the network operator accounting object is configurable to receive data either from a measurement object controlled by the network operator or from a customer terminal.
  • the method includes changing from one configuration to the other in response to a control signal received at the network accounting object.
  • the method includes communicating measurement data to a system remote from the customer terminal.
  • data may be communicated from a number of customer terminals to a corporate accounting system.
  • the data may be sent explicitly, and/or a usage charge calculated using the data may be sent to the remote system.
  • data is reported to a remote system, this may be done immediately the data is generated, or may be done in the form of a report aggregating data from a series of measurements over a period of time.
  • the method includes:
  • the steps provide a powerful and efficient method of accounting between domains in a federated data network.
  • data may be flowing e.g. from a first customer terminal, via intermediate network domains to a second customer terminal, the accounting data (i.e. the measurement data or data derived therefrom) need not all flow in the same direction.
  • the invention encompasses, for example, systems in which accounting data is passed from the customer to the first domain and also is passed from the second network domain to the first network domain.
  • the method includes determining from a current routing table in the first network domain the identity of a second domain communicating data with the customer terminal via the first network domain, and communicating accounting data for the customer terminal with the second domain identified by the current routing table.
  • a method of operating a network comprising a plurality of network domains, including calculating a charge for use by a respective customer of network resources, and making payment in settlement of the said charge to a third party clearer.
  • This clearing payment may be used to apportion charges between the end users in any desired ratio, e.g. the sender pays all, or sender pays 60 % receiver pays 40%, etc..
  • a method of operating a packet network providing a plurality of different service levels including passing the said packets through a packet router, and in the packet router determining a classification of packets, scheduling packets differently depending on the packet classification and, at a location remote from the router, policing the service levels of packets to determine the eligibility of a packet for a respective service class.
  • the invention also encompasses the communications network of claim 28, and the communications system of claim 27.
  • Advantageous embodiments are claimed in the dependent claims.
  • a communications network 1 includes a number of network sub-domains 2A-C.
  • the network sub-domains may be under the control of different operators. The operation of the network does not assume that there is mutual trust between the different operators.
  • the network subdomains are interconnected by gateway routers 3, 4.
  • the communications network is the Internet and supports both unicast and multicast Internet Protocol (IP) and associated protocols.
  • IP Internet Protocol
  • a customer terminal 5 is connected via a public switched telephony network (PSTN) 6 and an access router 7 to a subdomain 2A. No policing is required at the access router.
  • the gateway routers 3,4, and access router 7 may be commercially available devices such as CISCO series 7500 routers and CISCO series AS5800 universal access server respectively.
  • Other customer terminals are connected to the network, including a Java-enabled mobile terminal 8 and a data server 9.
  • the customer terminal 5 may be connected via a LAN to an accounting server.
  • the accounting server may include an accounting object as described below that receives measurement data from the customer terminal.
  • a network management platform 10 is connected to each subdomain.
  • Each network management platform may comprise, for example, a computing system comprising a SPARC workstation running UNIX (Solaris) together with network management applications.
  • the network management platform 10 hosts management entities and tariff entities. It may also function as an accounting server hosting network accounting objects as described below.
  • the network management platform communicates with agents 100 in managed devices connected to the respective subdomain, for example using SNMP (simple network management protocol).
  • the management platform monitors the overall loading of network resources in the respective subdomains, and adjusts the tariffs for network use accordingly.
  • the Net management platform instructs the agent to monitor the device and report aggregated results at regular intervals back to the NMP, so the NMP can monitor the combination of all reports.
  • a tariff algorithm at each customer terminal may be arranged to respond automatically to a locally detected variation in the loading of network resources.
  • the use of local tariff variation is described below.
  • a service provider may offer different products defined by different service level agreements, and/or by different price volatilities. For example product A might offer best-effort service at a fixed price while another product B might offer best-effort service at a variable price.
  • a service provider may adjust product prices on the basis of the following parameters: the price the service provider pays to its wholesale provider: competitors' prices; current resource utilisation; relevant demand for different products.
  • tariff adjustments may be effected in one of three ways. Firstly, a tariff may adjust prices on the basis of local observations of network loading, without necessitating explicit communication from the provider. This approach, which is described in further detail below, needs to be built into the tariff at the outset, and is limited to those price variations which are dependent exclusively on local observations.
  • the provider may tune a tariff by adjusting some of its parameters. This kind of adjustment is required when the decision is dependent on parameters which cannot be observed directly by the customer, e.g., variation in the wholesale price of network resources.
  • the provider may completely replace a tariff. This is required when the existing tariff cannot accommodate the changes that are required.
  • the first of the tariff changes described above is necessarily carried out automatically.
  • the second type of change may be performed manually, or by an agent that issues adjustments automatically in response to observations made by the service provider system.
  • the third type of change is likely to be performed manually, as replacement of a new tariff will in general require an element of design requiring human input.
  • an agent might be employed to automatically switch tariffs for a product on the basis of a set of specified rules.
  • the Tariff interface acts as the base class for all tariffs. This defines a single operation get GUI () which returns a Java SWING component which can be incorporated into the customer's GUI (graphical user interface). This GUI component enables the customer to visualise the behaviour of the tariff using techniques appropriate to the tariff.
  • Subclasses of the Tariff interface establish a set of tariff types, each of which is associated with a different set of measurement and input parameters. These parameters are identified by listing them in the signature of the getcharge ( ) method.
  • the interface RSVPTariff defines getCharge ( ) as receiving an RSVP TSPEC, allowing for the definition of tariffs that compute price on the basis of the characteristics of an RSVP reservation.
  • the interface Packet Count Tariff defines getcharge ( ) as receiving measurements of packets in, packets out, and current congestion (typically measured as a function of packet drop), allowing for the definition of tariffs that are dependent on packet counts and sensitive to congestion. Other tariffs may be added as new forms of usage-measurement emerge.
  • the Tariff interface and the subclass tariff interfaces RSVPTariff and PacketCountTariff are illustrated in Figure 12.
  • tariffs are defined by providing implementations of the various tariff interfaces described above.
  • the tariff PacketCountLinear implements PacketcountTariff to compute charges in proportion to packet counts.
  • Another tariff CongestionSensitiveLinear works on a similar basis, but adds a penalty charge if the customer does not stay within a specified traffic limit in the presence of congestion.
  • a tariff may make use of other 'helper' classes to assist in its operation, as well as one or more user interface component classes for customer visualisation purposes.
  • a provider-side user interface may also be required in order to enable the provider to make tariff adjustments.
  • a complete tariff description consists of a set of Java classes, some of which are destined for the customer system and others which are intended for use by the provider system.
  • the customer-side classes are bundled into a Java archive (JAR) file to facilitate processing by the provider system.
  • JAR Java archive
  • the provider system In order to deploy a new tariff, the provider system first loads the tariff classes which it requires into its execution environment. It then loads the customer-side bundle, serialises it, signs it with a private key, and uses an announcement protocol to distribute it to customer systems. The use of a signature makes it possible for customers to verify that received tariffs are authentic.
  • each customer system Upon receiving the bundle, each customer system verifies the signature (using the public key matching the provider's private key), and at the activation time specified in the announcement protocol headers which may be significantly later, e.g. hours or days, unpacks the bundle, and loads the classes into its execution environment using a purpose-built dynamic class loader. An instance of the received tariff class is created and installed in place of the previous tariff. If the tariff has a user interface component (obtained by calling the tariff object's getGUI () method), then it replaces the user interface of the previous tariff. The change in user interface serves to notify the user that the tariff has changed.
  • Tariff adjustment involves the remote invocation of an operation which is specific to the tariff currently in force. This means that a customer system cannot know the signature of this operation in advance of receiving the tariff i.e. the operation will not be listed in any of the tariff interfaces known to the customer system.
  • the provider In order to get around this problem, use is made of the "reflection" feature supported by Java.
  • the provider In order to disseminate a tariff adjustment, the provider creates an instance of an Invocation object, which stores the name of the operation to be called, together with the parameters that are to be supplied to it. This object is then serialised, signed, and announced using the announcement protocol.
  • the invocation object is de-serialised and applied to the current tariff by using reflection to invoke the described operation.
  • the customer system may apply a tariff by repeatedly invoking the getcharge ( ) operation supported by that tariff every second, and adding the returned value to the cumulative charge.
  • the parameters supplied to getcharge ( ) depend on the kind of tariff currently in force. For example, if the tariff is an implementation of PacketCountTariff, then measurements of inbound packets, outbound packets and congestion over the past second are required. However, if the tariff is an implementation of RsvpTariff, then only a TSPEC describing the current reservation is required. This implies that a customer system can only subscribe to a product if it can supply the parameters require by the tariff associated with hat product.
  • Each invocation of the getcharge ( ) method also results in an update to the tariff-specific user interface.
  • the usage parameters supplied to getcharge ( ) are used to update the graphical displays of traffic and congestion.
  • the announcement protocol is used to communicate serialised tariffs and adjustments from a provider system to multiple customer systems.
  • the number of customer systems is assumed to be large, and a repeated multicast solution is adopted.
  • Each product supported by a provider is assigned a multicast channel for announcement purposes.
  • Customer systems listen to the channels corresponding to the products that they are using. In the current implementation, it is assumed that each customer system has knowledge of well-known multicast addresses for the products it is interested in.
  • the provider For each product channel, the provider repeatedly announces the current tariff and the most recent adjustment made to it (if any). Each announcement carries a version number, which is incremented each time the announcement is changed. Customer systems only process announcements when a version number change is detected. If a new customer joins a channel, it waits until it receives a tariff before processing any adjustment announcements. Furthermore, an adjustment is only applied if its announcement version is greater than that of the current tariff, thereby ensuring that a missed tariff announcement does not result in the application of a subsequent adjustment to an old tariff.
  • the objects used to implement the charging architecture in this embodiment are now described.
  • the objects comprise higher level objects and component objects used in a software implementation of the charging architecture. Some objects are intended to reside on the client terminal (e.g. on client terminal 5) and others are intended to reside somewhere within the "Edge Network" (e.g. on access router 7 or within the corresponding network sub-domain - see Figure 1)
  • the objects on the customer terminal include a session control object S, a customer business rules object B c , a customer pricing object Pr c , a QoS manager Q, a customer accounting object Act c and a customer measurement object M c .
  • the business rules object B c receives information on those aspects of the session which involve liability for payment and receives current pricing data from the pricing object Pr c .
  • the customer business object makes decisions, under the customer's policy control on which chargeable services are utilised, and how much of the chargeable services are utilised. These decisions are fed to the QoS manager Q, which decides which mechanisms are used to achieve the requirements.
  • the QoS manager (and the accounting object) then controls the customer measurement object M c to determine which aspects of traffic and service to measure and which aspects to ignore.
  • the measurement object then records the selected aspects of the traffic, for example counting the number of packets transmitted and received by the customer terminal and the QoS levels for those packets.
  • the measurement object M c is also programmed, by the accounting object, with instructions which determine the frequency at which data is reported to the customer accounting object Act c .
  • the customer accounting object Act c passes accounting information (priced or not) to an accounting object Actp in the network provider's domain.
  • M p On the network provider's side, that is to say within the subdomain to which the customer terminal is connected, the customer's traffic is measured by a version of M, denoted M p , but only on a sampling basis determined by the policing function, Po. That is to say, the network operator samples the customer's traffic only intermittently. Po controls where in the network measurements are made in order to capture all of any particular customer's traffic.
  • a bulk measurement function, M b is responsible for reporting aggregate traffic levels, as reflected in the moving average of the router queue lengths, to the pricing object, Pr p . Bulk measurements would typically be collected from across the provider's domain to a centralised pricing function (which would be replicated for reliability).
  • Pr p sets prices taking into account the business rules from the network provider's business object, B p , as well as the current traffic levels reported by M b and pricing from neighbouring providers.
  • the policing function, Po compares sample measurements from M p with accounting messages received at Actp as a result of the customers own measurements. If it establishes that the accounts are insufficient it might restrict service at the access control gateway, Acs, or initiate some other punishment. Encapsulated within the accounting object another policing object checks the accounts match the payments within the contracted time for payment.
  • the identity mapping function, I provides a mapping between a customer's identity (account, digital signature, etc.) and their current network address (typically allocated by the ISP, whether unicast or multicast).
  • the measurement (M) objects provide to the accounting (Act) objects the information that is required to create firstly accounting records and subsequently reports and bills. Measurement records are not stored as such in the Act objects: measurement data is translated into accounting records as soon as possible. The translation of measurement data into accounting records involves a change of class type and some aggregation. In addition the measurement data may be linked to tariff information.
  • the measurement data returned by the measurement objects includes, in this example, the following elements:
  • measurement data is returned by the measurement object to the Act object on an event-driven basis at time intervals controlled by the accounting object.
  • Alternative approaches may use polling of the measurement object by the Act object, or event driven polling,: Communication of data may be effected using Java - RMI (remote method invocation) and the Java event model or a socket may be created between Act and M to send measurement objects .
  • Further alternative communication mechanisms include the use of CORBA or SNMP like messaging.
  • the present example makes use of an RMI/CORBA-like distributed event programming infrastructure called FLEXINET.
  • Measurement objects offer a control interface to Act objects, so that Act objects can control what measures, and when and where M reports its measurement information.
  • This control interface offers access to the following parameters:
  • the accounting objects on the customer terminal may be implemented using a small encrypted flat-file database.
  • the equivalent objects may be implemented using a larger database that is scaleable to handle e.g., tens of thousands of customer accounts.
  • An object request broker (ORB) is used for communication between the customer-side objects and the network-side objects, implemented using commercially available tools such as ORBIX (TradeMark) from lona Technologies plc.
  • Serialisation is used to stream objects from one database to another via the network. The process of serialisation takes all the attributes of an object and streams the attributes over a specified medium together with information specifying the type of object that originated the data.
  • a process of de-serialisation then takes the data from the transmission medium together with the object type information and creates a new object of the specified type and fills it with the data.
  • the accounting databases hold a set of serialised accounting objects.
  • the larger database required by the network provider may be an object-oriented database that accepts objects and serialises them into its storage space.
  • a non object oriented database may be used, in which case the accounting objects are translated into database types.
  • the accounting objects are translated into SQL data types for use with a relational database.
  • the serialisation/de-serialisation mechanism described above is also used to support the measurement and accounting interface between network domains.
  • the edge-of-network domain that communicates packets to and from the customer terminal in turn passes packets to a number of neighbouring domains.
  • accounting data is passed from the customer to the edge-of-network domain
  • accounting data is passed from an accounting object 71 in the edge-of-network domain to an accounting object 72 in a neighbouring domain
  • payment is made by the operator of the edge-of-network domain to the operator of the neighbouring domain.
  • the edge-of-network domain is a retail domain
  • the neighbouring domains are wholesale domains.
  • the architecture of the interface between the retail domain and the wholesale domains is a recursive version of the interface between the retail domain and the end customer.
  • all the measurement and QoS features of the interface to the end customer are not required in the interface between the retail and wholesale networks.
  • the current routing and/or address allocation in the retail network is interrogated to apportion accounting between the wholesale networks.
  • This is effectively another form of identity mapping, I.
  • the mapping is needed between the identities of each neighbour provider and their current groups of unicast addresses, address prefixes, multicast addresses or autonomous system (AS) numbers. This is not generally required in the edge architecture, as an edge customer typically has only one provider.
  • mapping to apportion accounting is used at the edge too.
  • the measurement of traffic between retail and wholesale domains can be sampled and done in parallel to the data flow - no blocking is required. Any pair of network providers might in practice each be mutual customers. In this case, the architecture for the retail/wholesale interface is mirrored so that all functions operate in both directions. Any payments between network domains are then determined by the balance of the products of each accounting flow and the relevant prices.
  • a "wholesale" domain 82 may receive accounting data from a number of retail networks 81,83. These data are aggregated by the accounting object in domain 82 and then apportioned between further neighbouring domains, such as domain 84. The way in which the accounting data are apportioned is determined by an averaged border routing table maintained in the domain 82 Figures 3a and 3b show the data which are passed between the accounting objects.
  • the account data comprises: account identity; bill record identity; service type identifier; source address; destination address; tariff identity; time; period (i.e. the period covered by the bill record); units; cost; and currency.
  • the payment data comprises the amount of money and the currency of payment.
  • Figure 4 shows the measurement region within protocol stacks on the customer terminal and in the retail network domain.
  • there would be two measurement points within this region one trusted by the customer and one trusted by the network, for example at the two points referenced (a) in the Figure.
  • a single measurement point (b) trusted by both parties may be used. This might be implemented, for example within a secure module such as a cryptographic card on the client terminal.
  • measurements may be made at different points with some possibility of discrepancies between measurements.
  • the practical measurement point is at the first access device(s) that, for each customer, inspects network layer headers (c)(IP in this case). ISPs should not measure any deeper into their network (d) because their access network and systems will introduce delays and losses.
  • a practical point at which to measure would also be alongside the network layer but in their end-system's stack (e). Ideally these measurement points would be lower in each stack to be closer to the interface between the two parties and less likely to be affected by contention in the stack.
  • measuring at the link layer (f-f) would be inappropriate because only some chargeable parameters set at the network layer will ever be reflected in link layer frames; network level multicast, end-end latency requirements etc. may never be visible at the link layer.
  • link layer headers would need to be ignored when measuring packet sizes for bandwidth calculations to avoid apparent discrepancies where different link technologies are chained together.
  • this choice of measurement points implies that the lower layers must be dimensioned (buffer sizes, interrupt and thread scheduling priorities) to cope with the most stringent QoS requirements of higher layers.
  • the machine must be able to pass data up the stack without any chance that usage-charged data gets discarded (e.g. due to buffer overflow caused by interrupt contention) before it gets to the network layer. It is at the network layer where the ISP's service is to be measured and where it is most convenient for QoS requirements to control correct differential treatment of the various flows as they are passed further up the stack (on end-systems) or forwarded (on routers).
  • the measurement objects described above may be implemented using, with appropriate modifications, publicly available network metering software such as Nevil Brownlee's NeTraMet system.
  • This is a software meter which conforms to the IETF internet accounting architecture described in RFC 2063 and RFC 2064.
  • the meter builds up, using "packet sniffing", packet and byte counts for traffic flows, which are defined by their end-point addresses.
  • Addresses can be ethernet addresses, protocol addresses (IP, DECnet, EtherTalk, IPX or CLNS) or 'transport' addresses (IP port numbers, etc), or any combination of these, in the present implementation IP addresses only are used.
  • the traffic flows to be observed are specified by a set of rules, which are downloaded to NeTraMet by a 'manager' program. Traffic flow data is collected via SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) from a 'collector' program
  • Figures 5a to 5e are class diagrams illustrating an implementation of the measurement and accounting objects described above.
  • the class diagrams are shown as a series of views.
  • the control view (5a) groups the classes/interfaces related to enabling control over the accounting class, including reporting control, metering-related control and general control functions. This view also relates to event dissemination. Control over the Accounting class is separated according to the type of control. This is why four interfaces are available. Two of those interfaces provide direct control over the behaviour of the Accounting object and the two others are related to a Java event model used to communicate both reporting information and measurement information.
  • the ActControl interface provides control over the accounting class that relates to the accounting behaviour in general. It provides both methods to set a behaviour or properties and methods to find out about the current behaviour of the accounting object. For example, this interface is used to set the name of the accounting object or to query the Act object to find out a name previously given to the Act object.
  • the ActReport interface provides control over issues related to account reporting. Control calls are directly related to the reporting behaviour of the accounting object. For example, a method named addReportListener() is used to register interest in reporting information. Once the registration is effective, subsequent calls to other control methods define behaviour such as the reporting frequency; request for immediate reporting, reporting security properties, etc.
  • the two other listener interfaces (Report & Measurement) which the Accounting class implements are used to indicate that accounting objects are interested in accounting reports and measurements.
  • the accounting report view ( Figure 5b) regroups the classes/interfaces related to the reporting behaviour and reporting process in the accounting object.
  • the accounting object listens to accounting reports and generates such events as well.
  • Accounting objects generate accounting reports and distribute them (using the traditional Java event model) to objects that have registered their interest in such events.
  • flexinet A CORBA like distributed programming infrastructure
  • the Accounting class implements the ReportListener interface so that it can receive those accounting reports as well.
  • the accounting report events are of a ReportEvent class.
  • An event in this class is a traditional Java event which includes a Report object.
  • the main attribute in the Report class is records. Records is a simple vector of accounting records. These records are described in the accounting store view ( Figure 5c).
  • the ActReportCtrl interface defines the control calls related to the accounting reporting process of an accounting object. Calls are available for an object to register interest in accounting reports, de-register interest and to control the reporting process.
  • the accounting store view ( Figure 5c) regroups the classes/interfaces to show the classes related to the persistent storage of accounting information.
  • An accounting object has a Database of accounting Records.
  • the Record type holds accounting information which is not priced. Priced information is the subject of a different class.
  • the Database class is a simple Vector of Record objects and it can be serialized to a file on a external storage medium. The database is also responsible for returning accounting records that have to be reported.
  • the accounting meter view ( Figure 5d) regroups the classes/interfaces to show the classes/interfaces related to the metering aspect of the accounting class. This relates both to the reception of measurement information in the accounting objects and also to the control of the Meter as well as illustrating a simple Meter class.
  • the Meter class uses a "Pulsar" object that generates pulses events as required. The frequency of pulses is set by the Meter object. On reception of pulses the Meter generates objects of type MeasurementEvent. Objects implementing the MeasurementListener interface and that have registered their interest in measurement results will then receive those events via a measurementHandler method. As previously noted, the Meter object and one or more of the objects receiving measurement events may be remote from each other.
  • a measurement event is a conventional Java event and includes a measurement record of type MeasurementRecord.
  • An accounting object gets measurement information from a Meter over which it has got control via the MeterControl interface.
  • a typical example of control is the measurement reporting frequency, that is, an accounting object may control the frequency with which a meter object sends reports to it.
  • This control interface is also the one to use to register interest in measurement results.
  • the accounting miscellaneous view ( Figure 5e) regroups the classes/interfaces to show all of the other classes that do not fit into the previously described views.
  • the AccountingBeanlnfo class is a JavaBean related class which modifies the description of some attributes on the Accounting class when those properties have to be graphically displayed in the BeanBox or in any other component builder tool.
  • the Go and MeterGo classes only implement a main method. Go is used to launch an accounting object and MeterGo a Meter object.
  • the AccountingGUI class is responsible for the GUI related to the accounting objects.
  • the Meter object has no GUI associated with it.
  • the Accounting GUI is shown in Figure 6.
  • the top part of the GUI includes data from the Accounting object and the bottom part relates to the control available over the accounting object.
  • the control part is directly related to the control interfaces available for the Accounting objects.
  • the accounting class is not aware of the GUI as the reference is from the GUI to the accounting class.
  • the accounting mechanisms described above can be used in combination with contracts between customers and retail and wholesale networks to establish liability to pay and who is expected to pay.
  • the following section describes different clearing models for the making of payments.
  • the systems described in this section may be used in conjunction with, or independently of the specific accounting mechanisms described above.
  • Each edge ISP may be paid on a "half-circuit" basis for both their sent and received service.
  • other business models may be supported. In a business model where ISPs do not expect payment for all sent and received traffic to be made to all edge providers, instead a customer might pay their own provider on behalf of both (all) ends as in telephony. A further accounting field would appear to be necessary - a "payee” field.
  • this alternative business model might be that the decision as to which end(s) payment from edge customers entered the system was made on a per flow basis by customers. We shall call this model the "provider clearing" model for reasons that will become clear as we go.
  • the "payee percentage" field would have to drive inter-provider accounting, otherwise the revenue of an edge ISP and its upstream providers would depend on a factor completely outside their control - to which end its customers chose to make payment.
  • the "payee percentage” field would therefore have to be trusted by upstream providers.
  • the aggregation might have to be done by software signed by a third party trusted by all the parties involved (TTP) and then the record re-signed by the TTP. However the aggregation software would also have to run on a host trusted by the TTP.
  • the payment should ideally be split taking into account the current prices of all the edge providers who will eventually be paid.
  • the only alternative (used in the international accounting rate system (IARS) for telephony) is for ISPs to agree compromise prices between themselves that average out price inconsistencies.
  • IARS international accounting rate system
  • the clearing house role deals with the half-circuit sharing (including the straightforward price differences between the two ends) leaving inter-provider accounting to be purely about wholesaling.
  • the third part clearer may be implemented on one of the management platforms 10 or on an additional platform connected to one of the network domains. Providers or customers may assume the clearing house role, but the accounting information model is based on a third party clearing system to allow for the most general case.
  • the paying customer makes payment to a dedicated clearing house, direct to the ISP at the remote end or even direct to the remote customer so that they can pay their own ISP, in all cases, the role of clearing is separate even if there is no separate enterprise to achieve the function.
  • telco is offering telephony sessions at fixed prices, but the range of prices is less than the number of possible ways the price could vary if it were simply composed of all the end to end prices charged by providers necessary to assemble each session.
  • this role may be assumed by the edge customer in the Internet world, but it is possible for other parties to offer prices for transmissions by selling on IP service while absorbing variations across providers in the prices they are charged wholesale. This motivation may also continue to be taken by telcos and ISPs too.
  • Figure 11 shows the use of edge pricing in the network figure.
  • a packet is shown being multicast from N a into N b and onward into the other networks. Because multicast is a general case of unicast this allows us to model both topologies. We will also be able to treat the topology as aggregation by reversing the direction of transmission. The term packet is used, but the arrows could represent flows of similar class packets for a certain time. The packet or flow being modelled could be data or signalling. It is not necessary to model multi-source multicast separately because packets from different sources always remain separate.
  • Figure 11 highlights the pricing between networks N a and N b .
  • W bas and W bar denote the per direction weightings applied to the charge N a applies to N b for sending data to N b and for receiving data from N b respectively, while W abs and W abr are the weightings which N b applies when charging N a for sending data to N a and receiving data from N a respectively.
  • Each weighted price is for transmission between the edge in question and the remote edge of the internet, not just the remote edge of that provider. There are four price weightings like this at every inter-network interface, but the weights would take different values unless the neighbours are of the same status. Thus the payment for traffic in any one direction across each interface depends on the difference between the two weighted prices offered by the networks either side.
  • FIG. 13 shows an example of the invention applied in this context.
  • customer terminals 131 which are in this example so-called intelligent phones, that is telephones incorporating a microprocessor and a data interface, are connected via local exchanges 132 and trunk exchanges 133 to the telephony networks.
  • the trunk exchanges 133 are connected via a common channel SS7 (signalling system number 7) signalling network 2 to a service control point 135 that is responsible for the execution of advanced call control functions.
  • SS7 signalling system number 7
  • the service control point 135 is also connected to an operational support server 136 that is responsible for billing operations, and that, in this example, controls the setting of tariffs for the network.
  • the OSS server and customer terminals include tariff entities (TE).
  • the fixed PSTN network is also interconnected via a gateway 137 to a cellular GSM network 138.
  • Base Stations BS in the cellular network communicate signals to intelligent mobile phones 139.
  • network tariffs are distributed to customer terminals via the PSTN network and via the GSM network.
  • the tariff may again take the form of Java functions which are executed on processors in the customer terminals.
  • the Java functions may be streamed as Internet packets. In one implementation, these Internet packets may be distributed via the PSTN networks and GSM networks themselves.
  • the packets may be encapsulated and transported to the trunk exchanges using the MTP (message transport part) transport layer and may be communicated onwards to the customer terminals using out-of-band signalling.
  • MTP message transport part
  • a separate data connection may be established between the OSS server and the customer terminals via the public internet.
  • the network operator monitors the loading of resources within the network and may transmit signals to the tariff entities in the customer terminals to change the tariff to reflect the scarceness or otherwise of relevant resources.
  • Customer terminals may themselves monitor network loading and automatically generate variations in the tariffs. Usage of network resources may be measured locally by the customer terminals instead of conventional billing carried out within the network.
  • the network operator may police the measurement of usage data by carrying out sampling, as described previously.

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  • Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
  • Computer Networks & Wireless Communication (AREA)
  • Signal Processing (AREA)
  • Environmental & Geological Engineering (AREA)
  • Data Exchanges In Wide-Area Networks (AREA)
  • Meter Arrangements (AREA)
  • Telephonic Communication Services (AREA)
EP99925200A 1998-06-05 1999-06-04 Accounting in a communications network Expired - Lifetime EP1119944B1 (en)

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GB9825723 1998-11-24
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GBGB9902052.1A GB9902052D0 (en) 1999-01-29 1999-01-29 Communications network
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PCT/GB1999/001772 WO1999065184A2 (en) 1998-06-05 1999-06-04 Accounting in a communications network
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AU4158099A (en) 1999-12-30
WO1999065185A2 (en) 1999-12-16
DE69933130T2 (de) 2007-03-08
CN100385851C (zh) 2008-04-30
JP2002518882A (ja) 2002-06-25
CN1217510C (zh) 2005-08-31
WO1999065184A2 (en) 1999-12-16
DE69934898T2 (de) 2007-11-15
CA2333712C (en) 2007-05-01
AU763659B2 (en) 2003-07-31
JP4386582B2 (ja) 2009-12-16
CN1222135C (zh) 2005-10-05
EP1123604A2 (en) 2001-08-16
EP1123604B1 (en) 2004-08-04
EP1119944A2 (en) 2001-08-01
CA2333361C (en) 2007-11-06
CA2333362A1 (en) 1999-12-16
DE69919190D1 (de) 2004-09-09
CA2333712A1 (en) 1999-12-16
JP2002518883A (ja) 2002-06-25
US7747240B1 (en) 2010-06-29
JP4361214B2 (ja) 2009-11-11
DE69933130D1 (de) 2006-10-19
US7319673B1 (en) 2008-01-15
AU4158199A (en) 1999-12-30
AU770571B2 (en) 2004-02-26
WO1999065183A3 (en) 2001-05-03
EP1119943B1 (en) 2007-01-17
WO1999065183A2 (en) 1999-12-16
JP2002518884A (ja) 2002-06-25
JP4455758B2 (ja) 2010-04-21
US7426471B1 (en) 2008-09-16
EP1119943A2 (en) 2001-08-01
WO1999065184A3 (en) 2001-05-10
US7535853B2 (en) 2009-05-19
AU4157599A (en) 1999-12-30
DE69934898D1 (de) 2007-03-08
CA2333362C (en) 2007-11-13
CN1311933A (zh) 2001-09-05
CA2333361A1 (en) 1999-12-16

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